Still Moving Field Guide

Foreword vii

Acknowledgments xi

A Few Words About the Front Cover xiii

About the Companion Website xv

Introduction 1

Part 1 Understanding Change Vitality 3

What Is Change Vitality? 3

What Makes Up Change Vitality? 4

What Change Vitality Comprises--in More Detail 6

Why Does Change Vitality Matter? 6

Part 2 Field Guide--The Inner Capacities 9

Introduction 9

Staying Present 10

Curious and Intentional Responding 14

Tuning Into the System 18

Acknowledging the Whole 23

A Word About Non-Mindful Practice 28

Part 3 Field Guide--The External Practices 29

Introduction 29

Attractor 30

Edge and Tension 34

Container 40

Transforming Space 45

External Practices Self-Audit 51

Part 4 Field Guide--The Change Approaches 55

Introduction 55

Masterful 56

Emergent 62

Directive and Self-Assembly Change 68

Assessing Your Approach to Change 71

Part 5 Field Guide--The Ordering Forces 77

Leading Change--Ordering Forces Insight 77

Time 77

Belonging 81

Belonging-- How Well Do You Attend to This? 81

Tale From the Field: Time and Belonging--Mergers and Acquisitions 82

Exchange 86

Place 90

A Word About Limiting Forces: What Happens When the Ordering Forces Are Neglected? 94

Still Moving--Epilogue 95

Index 9

Reading Still Moving and participating in the practitioner course was a before-and-after experience for me. The teaching has made me feel richer and added a depth to my work as a leadership trainer and coach that I have previously not experienced. It has made me more courageous when it comes to bringing leaders into the intangible realm. It has made me a braver coach, knowing that I can be a container to help people through change. I use the philosophy of Still Moving in all the leadership training that I am doing today.

With Still Moving as companion on my journey, I feel strong, grateful and curious of what comes next.

Edith Rian

Consultant and coach

Founder, Rösslyng GmbH


This is the go-to guide for leaders across organisations, no matter what sector, who are facing into dilemmas around how to lead change. Having worked through the Still Moving Field Guide, leaders will come away knowing far more about how their inner world impacts life in organisations. Be prepared to be shaken and stirred in unimaginable ways!

Jackie Gittins

Founder, Coach Nudge


'By becoming self-aware, you gain ownership of reality; in becoming real, you become the master of both inner and outer life' - Deepak Chopra

The Still Moving Field Guide offers a whole new paradigm for change practitioners, and is particularly apposite in our increasingly volatile world. The approach connects us at the real level of emotion and feeling, providing what I like to call a 'human navigation system' for leaders, practitioners and organisations to plot their way through uncertainty and disruption. At times provocative and counter-intuitive, this Field Guide consistently and compassionately taps into our human side and applies that capacity to the change agenda in rich, deep and meaningful ways, making it the most sustainable and accessible approach to change I know.

Richard Bateman

Owner, Richard Bateman Consulting


The Still Moving Field Guide is fantastically rich and thought provoking for any person wanting to be successful at Change. When it feels like the tectonic plates are shifting around us, when nobody really has the answers but only questions, when complexity is overwhelming and it is all making us feel unsettled, then finding a way back to our human inner capacities is the thing that is going to anchor us and allow us to truly shift patterns and create forward movement. With ruthless compassion, true respect and without judgement, Still Moving takes you on a journey starting in the inner world where you work with your origins, triggers and emotional responses, through to how these manifest themselves in outer action that in turn will have an impact on the whole system around you. It's a roller coaster ride like no other, and I could not have chosen a better companion. Thank you Still Moving, for this incredible expedition!

Ragnhild Øye, Change Partner - Talent, Leadership and Capability, FTSE100 Leading Industrial Technology Company


Be prepared to be blown away by both the power and practicality of the Still Moving Field Guide. Since becoming a practitioner in 2018, I have had the opportunity to look, learn and apply the acute nature of the inner capacities and external practices in a variety of situations - all linked to high magnitude change, transformation and unprecedent, emergent conditions. To say that in each and every case, the impact of applying these skills in a considered and measured way has resulted in exceptional outcomes, is an understatement. In applying the Still Moving philosophy, one must step whole heartedly into practising the skills which I have found to be a continuous and ongoing 'lived' experience, still moving even!

Trudie Adcock, Enterprise Learning Director, Astra Zeneca

Deborah Rowland has led change in major global corporations including BBC Worldwide, Gucci Group, PepsiCo and Shell. Author of Still Moving: How to Lead Mindful Change (Wiley) and co-author of Sustaining Change: Leadership That Works (Wiley), Deborah founded the change consultancy Still Moving, where she now advises institutional leaders around the world.

D. Rowland, Valparaiso University